Mwai Kibaki, who was officially re-elected president in Thursday's vote, and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who says he was robbed of victory by fraud, traded accusations while calling for an end to the killing.

A government spokesman told the BBC Mr Odinga's supporters were "engaging in ethnic cleansing", while Mr Odinga said Mr Kibaki's camp was "guilty, directly, of genocide".

Asked if he would urge his supporters to calm down, Mr Odinga told the BBC: "I refuse to be asked to give the Kenyan people an anaesthetic so that they can be raped."

The African Union chairman, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, is due to visit the former British colony.

She saw two bodies outside the charred building, one a man who appeared to have been hacked to death with a machete and the burned remains of a woman.

Our correspondent says at least 500 terrified local people have taken refuge in a police station in Eldoret.

The Kenyan Red Cross has said at least 70,000 people have been displaced by the unrest in the Rift Valley.

Correspondents say the disorder is already starting to affect other parts of East Africa, to which Kenya is a gateway.

As the most industrialised country in the region, many of Kenya's neighbours depend on it for essential imports like cooking oil, salt and flour.

Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Congo, which all get their fuel from a refinery in Eldoret, are starting to see prices at the pump soar as their supplies run out.

The Ugandan Red Cross says nearly 700 refugees have arrived in the eastern province of Busia after fleeing Kenya's violence.

Mr Kibaki was declared the winner on Sunday after a controversial three-day counting process.

On Tuesday, election commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu said he had been under pressure to make the election results public from Mr Kibaki's Party of National Unity and a minor opposition party that recently split from Mr Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement.

EU observers said the poll "fell short of international standards" but the government has denied fraud.